The single-player portion of Postal 2: Share the Pain is largely the same as before. Rather than adopt the conventionally linear structure of most first-person shooters, Postal 2 has a more open-ended structure reminiscent of the recent Grand Theft Auto games, only you’re stuck running around on foot. The cars lining the streets are apparently just there to mock you. As The PostalDude (that’s actually his name), you’re tasked with completing a seriesof mundane errands over the course of a work week. You may attempt tocomplete these errands conventionally–for example, on Monday all youneed to do is collect your paycheck, cash it, and then buy a carton ofmilk–but you’ll probably end up resorting to violence, and not justbecause you can.

As the week goes on, certain factions willautomatically get on Dude’s bad side, so going through the game withoutkilling anybody becomes practically impossible after a while. Also, thefreedom to explore the town of Paradise is undermined somewhat by theloading times that crop up in between relatively small sections oftown. Again, these are shorter and definitely more tolerable thanbefore, which makes the game less frustrating to play, but you’ll stillfind yourself plotting routes through town that require you to gothrough as few of these transitions as possible.